I grew up in Flushing, New York, as bad a name for any place that could exist on planet Earth. To ease the pain, natives believed that it was a Dutch colony, which is true, and was originally called Fleushing, which is not true and not one iota better. The original name was an English bastardization of a Netherlands town called Vlissingen. If anyone from Flushing knew this, they sure as hell couldn't pronounce it.
Smack in the middle of both JFK and LaGuardia Airports, our windows rattled in the summertime and we often had to yell "Hold on!" when...